Dear everybody,
It's almost winter. Where I live, the ground is frozen and covered in tiny frosty crystals that break under the boot with a satisfying crunch. I have recently moved farther into the hills of Western Massachusetts to a beautiful old restored barn just up the road from the rushing Mill River, which I can hear from my window. It's also a short walk to my favorite library, in which the librarian (the mom of a friend of mine) brings her short legged dog, Julie Christie, to work everyday and there is stuff everywhere like some children's book about a magical library that turns into a circus at night. My work space here is totally enchanted- for those of you who visited me in San Francisco and know the magic of that place, this too has got some serious charms. I'm excited to see you all here.
As I move farther out onto the land, I notice that I want to tend to my ribbons and heart strings that connect me to the rest of the world even more. I listen to the songs and shouts of the people in the cities and watch the occupiers, decolonizers, poets, climate change changers, hoarders, guardians of wealth and guardians of Earth, visionaries, artists, and edge walkers with a kind of wonder and new kind of distance. Something I've been thinking is, "what an amazing time to be alive on earth." And I wonder how, as a community healer and lover of life, I can continue to have my life and my work be in service to the liberation of all beings.
My work is just a simple attempt at that, and during this season of darkness, I feel a really deep gratitude for it. I feel so lucky that my work is to sit in the presence of so many committed, brilliant, loving, creative humans for an hour and see their light just shine forth completely, to hold them with immense love and gentleness and witness their wounds and vulnerabilities, to see all the ways they are growing and changing so they can bring their gifts to the world. YOUR gifts to the world, that is. I feel humbled that I get to support all of you on your paths and thank you for allowing me to be to be a part of your lives in this way. T H A N K Y O U.
After two years of taking some much needed rest (totally under-rated and necessary for the revolution) I am also excited to say that I am looking forward to a new year of being alive, being engaged, and doing some teaching. I am crafting an exciting workshop series on Community Healing for the Great Turning, as well as a Queer Healing & Queer Magic workshop for 2012, so please stay in touch for that! I'll also be co-teaching an Earth Healing workshop in Vermont in June with Fearn Lickfield and Pam Montgomery. Right now I am also delighted to be collaborating with the wonderful Jacoby Ballard from Third Root clinic in Brooklyn on a piece on Trans Holistic Health! Much is brewing in the cauldron!
Finally, as it is the season of solstice and giving things, I'd like to offer these bits for gifting your loved ones. Perhaps someone you know and adore would enjoy:
the favorite eau de fierceness, BOUNDARIES in a BOTTLE spray for protection and purification!
the deliciously potent, WITCHES, BITCHES, & HOS elixir for guidance and healing for all of us weeyotches, beeyotches, and you know whats.
a gift certificate for a SESSION or custom blended ELIXIR!
a jar of CHARMED HONEY for fertility, hot sex, love, or abundance!
If you like, please visit the apothecary on my website!
And here are some other things made by people I love that you might like too!
Narrow Bridge candles, handmade with love and justice in Oakland by Jonah Daniel, with proceeds going to Stop the JNF campaign
Vanessa Huang's ridiculously amazing letterpressed poetry and community supported poetry project
Jen Lorang's bewitching We are Bleeding and 2012 calendars
Dean Spade's mind-blowing and important book, Normal Life, out from South End Press
And so, my most gorgeous beings, I wish you all a sweet season of darkness, that you all may deepen into what calls to you, that you find the shine in what seems impossibly bleak, that you are gentle with yourselves and the ones you love, that you sink roots into rich source and feel yourself full, and that you know enoughness, freedom, and so much love in the coming year.
With all my heart,
Dori
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
it's the waning moon.
I know, I know, it's totally not a full moon, and I had a real (kind of) dilemma about if I should just wait until the new moon to write this, but I am such an anti-perfectionist, that I thought I'd shake things up a bit and surprise! write on this waning moon in aries. It's sort of nice to honor this moon; it's like the full moon gets all the girls and the new moon gets all the jews, so here's to you, three quarter-ish moon, you get a blog post. A short blog post, because I have an 8:30 no -computer curfew. And I'm drinking a tea full of herbal sedatives. So here we go.
One, is this interview I did which is now out in the Canadian journal, No More Potlucks. Gina Badger, artist, writer, herbalist genius, found me somehow, came and drank tea with me, and we talked about magic, plants, colonialism, and social justice. Enjoy. http://nomorepotlucks.org/article/magie-no17/out-time-interview-dori-midnight
Two, for those of you in the Northeast, I will be teaching a workshop this Sunday at Montview neighborhood farm called Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves. My workshop will be followed by an herbs for community resilience workshop with the brilliant Jade Alicandro- Mace.
In this experiential workshop, we'll explore our interconnectedness with each other and the earth, at a time in which our very survival, as a species and as a planet, seems to hang in the balance. If we are paying attention, our responses can range from numbness, grief, anger, or fear, which manifest differently in our daily lives (like environmental illness, cancer, ADHD, stress, addiction etc). How can we, as individuals and as communities, honor and move through these emotions and also connect to our gifts, vitality, creativity, and sense of connectedness to root ourselves in joy and be of service at this very time on the planet? We'll talk about land history- from genocide to toxic exposure- and learn rituals, remedies, and practices that support healing for ourselves, our communities, and the earth, herself.
They are trying to fundraise $100,000 to help the farmers recoup their losses and rebuild the farm.
You can make a tax deductible donation to:
So much has happened since I was here last. I actually did write on the new moon last month, which as you may remember was the day of the storm out here. It was all about community resilience and climate chaos. Sounds good, right? AND I was somewhat delirious because I was up all night long taking care of my sweet dog who has PTSD and paces and scratches and has to wear an anxiety outfit for dogs during storms, so what I wrote made very little sense and will remain a draft. forever. I will write about those things again, including thoughts on Rough Weather Networks and holistic disaster response.
Some things to share with you:
One, is this interview I did which is now out in the Canadian journal, No More Potlucks. Gina Badger, artist, writer, herbalist genius, found me somehow, came and drank tea with me, and we talked about magic, plants, colonialism, and social justice. Enjoy. http://nomorepotlucks.org/article/magie-no17/out-time-interview-dori-midnight
Two, for those of you in the Northeast, I will be teaching a workshop this Sunday at Montview neighborhood farm called Healing the Earth, Healing Ourselves. My workshop will be followed by an herbs for community resilience workshop with the brilliant Jade Alicandro- Mace.
In this experiential workshop, we'll explore our interconnectedness with each other and the earth, at a time in which our very survival, as a species and as a planet, seems to hang in the balance. If we are paying attention, our responses can range from numbness, grief, anger, or fear, which manifest differently in our daily lives (like environmental illness, cancer, ADHD, stress, addiction etc). How can we, as individuals and as communities, honor and move through these emotions and also connect to our gifts, vitality, creativity, and sense of connectedness to root ourselves in joy and be of service at this very time on the planet? We'll talk about land history- from genocide to toxic exposure- and learn rituals, remedies, and practices that support healing for ourselves, our communities, and the earth, herself.
$25-$60 sliding scale, no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. Please register in advance by emailing montview AT pedalpeople.COM or call 413-825-6795 x306
Three, I want to direct your attention to a couple of places dear to my heart that suffered great losses from the storm and could use your support.
Nuestras Raices is is a grass-roots organization that promotes economic, human and community development in Holyoke, Massachusetts through projects relating to food, agriculture, and the environment. They lost 95% of their produce, their farmer incubator site, and youth garden. They host 13 migrant and refugee farmers that cultivate specialty crops from the Caribbean and many of their plants used for seed saving were destroyed as well.
They are trying to fundraise $100,000 to help the farmers recoup their losses and rebuild the farm.
You can make a tax deductible donation to:
Nuestras Raices attn: Farm Relief
329 Main St
Holyoke MA 01040
Also, Partner Earth Education Center is a sweet sanctuary land where my dear friend and teacher Pam Montgomery lives and hosts workshops. The gardens were flooded with silt and boulders and there is much work to do to recover this beautiful land. You can learn more and make a donation
Four, check out the book, Urban Homesteading!
For one, it's got information on fermenting, rabbit raising, beekeeping, goat farming, cheesemaking, rain water catchment, and permaculture in the city. and more!
For two, it's by two stellar human beings, Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume, who I love.
For three, there are pictures of baby rabbits in it.
For four, I have a little bitty essay in it about community healing as homesteading! This book is an excellent resource, SO well written, and fabulous for both beginners to seasoned dirty city farmers, so please go to your local bookshop and buy it or ask them to order it, or ask your library to carry at least one copy of it.
with lots of love,
Dori
Saturday, March 19, 2011
FULL MOON: hearts breaking open
My heart, like so many of yours, is breaking for our world. While I feel full what sometimes feels like never-ending grief, I am also keenly aware of the beauty and resiliency in communities coming together, mobilizing actions, and taking care of one another. It's so vital that we stay grounded right now. Grounded in the reality of the crisis and grounded in the reality of what opportunities arise for healing and transformation during a time of such uncertainty. The day is just dawning here and I woke up before light to write what’s on my heart. I’ll tell you a true story and then offer some practices to help support us during these times. (I've also added some new recipes to the previous post)
As the radioactive fallout moves across the pacific, it falls into the beautiful sea, where life began from magical teeny tiny stuff. We’re watching our great mother be poisoned and nuclear is forever. My little human mind can hardly even comprehend the scale of time of nuclear toxicity, though my body knows it well. My own knowledge of how to care for the body and spirit in the face of radiation comes from a profoundly personal place. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 21 years old. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare and has a fairly high survival rate; it also is most common in people with radiation exposure, with spikes in children post- Chernobyl. The year after I was diagnosed, a class action suit was filed from very sick residents of the San Fernando Valley (it’s true, I’m a valley girl, for sure.) against Rocketdyne, a nuclear lab which has had leakages since the 50s. After two hellacious surgeries, I had what is the common treatment for thyroid cancer: Radioactive Iodine 131. I took this tiny pill, had a Geiger counter pointed at me, and was quarantined for a three days, because I myself was radioactive.
14 years later, I am still dealing with the toxic fallout from the treatment for cancer. I bow to cancer and I bow to the spirit of radiation, both big teachers for me in my path as a healer. I know that touching what felt like the bottom of the ocean of my own mortality at such a young age deepened my capacity for compassion and holding the suffering of all beings, grew my fiery passion for justice, and broke open my heart even further to connect with the earth herself, who like me, is a body capable of receiving both love and toxins. Someone recently sent me an email, which said, “Toxic is the new normal.” Yes, we’re exposed to junk all the time- EMF, heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides and even more so if you’re poor or a person of color or someone living in the global south.
It can be hard to not get mired or paralyzed in fear or freak out. It can feel like you are going crazy, living in this world, in which the dominant culture invalidates our experiences and instead offers empty options to numb ourselves with or buy our way out of fear. I just want to say, and maybe I am just talking to myself, that it is normal and so human to be scared, sad, uncertain, shut down, angry, and overwhelmed right now.
I invite you to ask yourself if your feelings of fear or grief can allow you to feel even more connected to everyone and everything, to the whole sparkling web of life? Can you extend your compassion as far as it can reach and also extend it to yourself, at this moment, living in this time of great anguish and uncertainty? And can you let it break your heart right open, so as you feel your pain for the world, you can sense that it is rooted in your love for the world and your love for life?
Last post I listed some nutritional and herbal remedies for these times and so now I want to offer some practices to help us keep on keeping on.
1. Get Present: easy to say, harder to do. A way to come into presence when it's hard is to slow down and take notice of what's inside and outside of you, without judgment or the need to fix or do anything. Be mindful of your consumption of media and how it makes you feel. Breathe.
2. Gratitude: When big waves of fear arise, or any emotions that feel overwhelming, inviting yourself to make a list of things you're thankful for can set your heart right again. This morning I am so grateful for my most precious magical dog curled up at my feet, a cup of nettles, contra dancing, running water, the sounds of the crows in the pine tree out my window. A good way to begin this practice is just to notice the things immediately around you and make yourself count 10-20 things. Place your hand on your heart and feel that pumping muscle and just how much you actually love this intense planet and all the beings here.
3. Gather: be with people. Make soup or a potluck with people and rather than get worked up in a collective freak out, create space to cry, laugh, or make rituals. Make plans for emergencies with your neighbors. Reach out to elders, marginally housed folks, people with disabilities in your buildings or neighborhoods to assess needs in case of emergency. Make a list of all the amazing skills all the people you know have, and then find new friends who have skills that might be missing. Find out about vigils, protests, rituals, or workshops in your area. (see below for some in the bay area and New England)
4. Grieve: I mentioned in the last post the importance of letting the rivers flow. I invite you to create a container with some people, perhaps around a bowl of water, and take turns going in the center of the circle to let tears, fears, or whatever comes come. Also, I love the buddhist practice of tonglen, which is to breathe in suffering and breathe out love, healing, or gratitude. Rather than turn away from the pain, we can experience our own capacities to transform suffering into love.
5. Give: make food for people. give yourself extra love and nourishment with baths or walks or a day off. if you have some extra, give money to doctors without borders or social justice organizations. Make offerings of your tears or songs or prayers to the earth, the sea, the creatures, the people. Give yourself respite from taking in news or images from time to time. Give your time to what's important.
6. Grow: allow your heart to get bigger from being stretched. Grow out of some old patterns. Maybe now's the time to stop eating sugar or stop using your microwave or spend less time on the computer or get involved more or rest more. Grow roots and tendrils, letting yourself grow towards others in solidarity.
7. Gentle: be kind and easy with your self. these are tough times and there's no need to go at anyone else's pace or be in anyone else's process. take a little time each day to tend to the tenderest part of you as if it's a baby. or a toddler. or a kitten. whatever works for you to bring out your kind, nurturing self.
7. keep Going. we're all in this together.
Happy full moon!
May this serious moonlight bathe the planet and all beings in healing, love, and balance and may our fears and grief connect us with everything, everyone and most of all with our love and reverence for life.
with much love,
Dori
Resources
EVENTS:
San Francisco: Elm Dance
Sunday 3/20 5-7pm Justin Hermann Plaza (canceled in the event of rain)
New England : Vigil at Vermont Yankee
Sunday, 3/20 1pm
HEALTH:
The Herbal Highway with Sarah Holmes
3/17 show all about herbal and nutritional support for radiation
see below- Joanna Macy's site has links to other health information. Take care not to get too overwhelmed in all the things you should be doing. Keep it simple and remember that we all need seaweed, miso, etc...let's share.
ACTIONS:
Information on stopping US Government subsidies and loan guarantees to nuclear industries, including bills that are before Congress now.
http://www.joannamacy.net/nuclearguardianship/fukushima-dai-ichi-2011.html
Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net
information on workshops in the Work that Reconnects
As the radioactive fallout moves across the pacific, it falls into the beautiful sea, where life began from magical teeny tiny stuff. We’re watching our great mother be poisoned and nuclear is forever. My little human mind can hardly even comprehend the scale of time of nuclear toxicity, though my body knows it well. My own knowledge of how to care for the body and spirit in the face of radiation comes from a profoundly personal place. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer when I was 21 years old. Thyroid cancer is pretty rare and has a fairly high survival rate; it also is most common in people with radiation exposure, with spikes in children post- Chernobyl. The year after I was diagnosed, a class action suit was filed from very sick residents of the San Fernando Valley (it’s true, I’m a valley girl, for sure.) against Rocketdyne, a nuclear lab which has had leakages since the 50s. After two hellacious surgeries, I had what is the common treatment for thyroid cancer: Radioactive Iodine 131. I took this tiny pill, had a Geiger counter pointed at me, and was quarantined for a three days, because I myself was radioactive.
14 years later, I am still dealing with the toxic fallout from the treatment for cancer. I bow to cancer and I bow to the spirit of radiation, both big teachers for me in my path as a healer. I know that touching what felt like the bottom of the ocean of my own mortality at such a young age deepened my capacity for compassion and holding the suffering of all beings, grew my fiery passion for justice, and broke open my heart even further to connect with the earth herself, who like me, is a body capable of receiving both love and toxins. Someone recently sent me an email, which said, “Toxic is the new normal.” Yes, we’re exposed to junk all the time- EMF, heavy metals, PCBs, pesticides and even more so if you’re poor or a person of color or someone living in the global south.
It can be hard to not get mired or paralyzed in fear or freak out. It can feel like you are going crazy, living in this world, in which the dominant culture invalidates our experiences and instead offers empty options to numb ourselves with or buy our way out of fear. I just want to say, and maybe I am just talking to myself, that it is normal and so human to be scared, sad, uncertain, shut down, angry, and overwhelmed right now.
I invite you to ask yourself if your feelings of fear or grief can allow you to feel even more connected to everyone and everything, to the whole sparkling web of life? Can you extend your compassion as far as it can reach and also extend it to yourself, at this moment, living in this time of great anguish and uncertainty? And can you let it break your heart right open, so as you feel your pain for the world, you can sense that it is rooted in your love for the world and your love for life?
Last post I listed some nutritional and herbal remedies for these times and so now I want to offer some practices to help us keep on keeping on.
1. Get Present: easy to say, harder to do. A way to come into presence when it's hard is to slow down and take notice of what's inside and outside of you, without judgment or the need to fix or do anything. Be mindful of your consumption of media and how it makes you feel. Breathe.
2. Gratitude: When big waves of fear arise, or any emotions that feel overwhelming, inviting yourself to make a list of things you're thankful for can set your heart right again. This morning I am so grateful for my most precious magical dog curled up at my feet, a cup of nettles, contra dancing, running water, the sounds of the crows in the pine tree out my window. A good way to begin this practice is just to notice the things immediately around you and make yourself count 10-20 things. Place your hand on your heart and feel that pumping muscle and just how much you actually love this intense planet and all the beings here.
3. Gather: be with people. Make soup or a potluck with people and rather than get worked up in a collective freak out, create space to cry, laugh, or make rituals. Make plans for emergencies with your neighbors. Reach out to elders, marginally housed folks, people with disabilities in your buildings or neighborhoods to assess needs in case of emergency. Make a list of all the amazing skills all the people you know have, and then find new friends who have skills that might be missing. Find out about vigils, protests, rituals, or workshops in your area. (see below for some in the bay area and New England)
4. Grieve: I mentioned in the last post the importance of letting the rivers flow. I invite you to create a container with some people, perhaps around a bowl of water, and take turns going in the center of the circle to let tears, fears, or whatever comes come. Also, I love the buddhist practice of tonglen, which is to breathe in suffering and breathe out love, healing, or gratitude. Rather than turn away from the pain, we can experience our own capacities to transform suffering into love.
5. Give: make food for people. give yourself extra love and nourishment with baths or walks or a day off. if you have some extra, give money to doctors without borders or social justice organizations. Make offerings of your tears or songs or prayers to the earth, the sea, the creatures, the people. Give yourself respite from taking in news or images from time to time. Give your time to what's important.
6. Grow: allow your heart to get bigger from being stretched. Grow out of some old patterns. Maybe now's the time to stop eating sugar or stop using your microwave or spend less time on the computer or get involved more or rest more. Grow roots and tendrils, letting yourself grow towards others in solidarity.
7. Gentle: be kind and easy with your self. these are tough times and there's no need to go at anyone else's pace or be in anyone else's process. take a little time each day to tend to the tenderest part of you as if it's a baby. or a toddler. or a kitten. whatever works for you to bring out your kind, nurturing self.
7. keep Going. we're all in this together.
Happy full moon!
May this serious moonlight bathe the planet and all beings in healing, love, and balance and may our fears and grief connect us with everything, everyone and most of all with our love and reverence for life.
with much love,
Dori
Resources
EVENTS:
San Francisco: Elm Dance
Sunday 3/20 5-7pm Justin Hermann Plaza (canceled in the event of rain)
New England : Vigil at Vermont Yankee
Sunday, 3/20 1pm
HEALTH:
The Herbal Highway with Sarah Holmes
3/17 show all about herbal and nutritional support for radiation
see below- Joanna Macy's site has links to other health information. Take care not to get too overwhelmed in all the things you should be doing. Keep it simple and remember that we all need seaweed, miso, etc...let's share.
ACTIONS:
Information on stopping US Government subsidies and loan guarantees to nuclear industries, including bills that are before Congress now.
http://www.joannamacy.net/nuclearguardianship/fukushima-dai-ichi-2011.html
Joanna Macy http://www.joannamacy.net
information on workshops in the Work that Reconnects
Monday, March 14, 2011
Recipes for the Great Turning
It's not the full moon, but I wanted to write to tell you all some things. As the day begins to dawn here in the still snowy woods, I wake up with both a heavy heart and the feeling of the sap rising. I don't know quite how to comprehend the magnitude of the earthquake in Japan and the nuclear fallout (on top of the sad, but sadly unsurprising turn of events in Wisconsin. )
It's so easy to shut down with all that's afoot, but we gotta keep going. I'm writing this morning with some recipes, as I hear the radiation is traveling across the Pacific and we've got plant allies who can help support us in these times.
To bring us courage and nourishment, as well as support our bodies in times of nuclear exposure, we can turn to our plant friends, our human friends, the kitchen, and our own inner resources. The ingredients and recipes below contain powerful medicine to help our immune systems cope with the toxins we ingest and breathe daily, and specifically with radiation. They are simple, relatively affordable, and effective ways we can feed ourselves and our loved ones in belly, heart, and spirit.
YOUR FRIENDS in TIMES OF NEED:
1. SEAWEED*: eat nori, put wakame, kombu, and hijiki in your soups and stews, make crunchy kelp brittle with it. The iodine in kelp helps protect your thyroid and other glands from radioactive uptake and in general is one of the most magical, medicinal foods on earth, grown by the O.F. (that's the Original Farmer also known as the Sea!) (see where to get seaweed at bottom of post)
2. MISO: good medicine full of live cultures, amino acids, minerals, and protein. I'd recommend making a big pot this week, having a bowl everyday and feeding it to all your friends, neighbors, and weirded-out co-workers (like one time when I brought my lunch to work and someone said it looked like a terrarium). recipe follows below.
3. MUSHROOMS: strengthen your immune system with some shitake mushrooms, sauteed or in soups. Mushrooms are the genius healers of the forest- they know how to bring everything (on earth and in the tiny microcosm of your body) back into balance.
4. Eat vegetables, especially DAIKON radishes and BURDOCK root- stick them in your soup too or make a shredded salad (recipe below). Daikon has been used for drawing out radiation, post nuclear fall out- it's cooling and detoxifying. These will make your liver fall madly in love with you.
5. WATER: DRINK it. lots of it. take BATHS in epsom salt and baking soda (1 lb of salt, with a bit of baking soda 2x week). Cry. (see #8)
7. FERMENT (thank you Shoshi!): buy or make homemade sauerkrauts & kim chi or trade with someone who does. This weekend some friends and I had a fermenting party and made buckets of crunchy apple, juniper berry and cabbage kraut, pickled ginger beets, and spicy kim chi. it's fun to massage vegetables in community. These lively foods have the probiotics your gut needs and wants and are deeply nourishing and restorative. my favorite (and very roughly used) cookbook on this subject: Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz
8. LOVE: send prayers, love, healing thoughts for those who need it most. Instead of freaking out or shutting down, let your anger, fear, and grief flow- it's what makes us human and feel connected to what's going on in the world right now. Crying is a potent way to detox, friends.
9. HERBS: if you want to get herbal, some great allies are nettle tea, cilantro (eat a lot of it or take a tincture- it helps draw heavy metals out ), and milk thistle (helps your liver process toxins). Also Yarrow Environmental Essence from FES is a beautiful formula to support the body in environmental disasters.
Magical Medicinal Miso* Soup
Saute one onion, sliced thin til translucent. Add water, seaweed of choice (I like Kombu and Wakame), shitake mushrooms (dried or fresh), burdock root, carrots, and any other hearty roots you like. Simmer for 25 minutes.
I like to add shredded or sliced ginger near the end, so it's strong, and some garlic. You can also add greens, like kale or spinach.
Because you don't want to boil your miso, I usually put a large dollop of miso paste in my bowl and then pour the broth on top to dissolve it.
Drink bowls and offer bowls to all your loved ones and neighbors, kiddos and pets, family and friends.
*I live about 20 minutes from the best miso factory ever, South River Miso, which is made in barrels with lots of love and magic.
Get your Daikon
Easy Shredded Salad
Shred 1 carrot and 1 daikon radish
Mix with sesame oil and a little umeboshi vinegar (also a great medicine!), sesame seeds, whatever fresh herbs you've got on hand (I love mint or cilantro), and a little tamari. Eat and feel alive and well thanks to the plants, the sun, the water and the farmers.
Sesame Kelp Brittle
Another seaweed recipe courtesy of the folks at She Sells Seaweed, given to me by my friend Angie.
http://www.shesellsseaweed.com/
~1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
~1/4 Cup Olive Oil
~Dash of shoyu soy sauce
~1 cup sesame seeds
~1/2 Cup crushed Almonds
~1/4-3/4 cup or to your liking of finely crushed kelp (set oven on low heat and bake kelp for 10 min or until crisp and grind in food processor)
~2-3 tsp of fresh finely chopped ginger root
Heat syrup, oil and soy sauce in small sauce pan. When mixture begins to foam up add seeds, nuts, kelp, and ginger, and stir thoroughly.
Line a large cookie sheet w/parchment.
Spread mixture onto parchment and then cover with another piece of parchment and roll out flat w/rolling pin (or glass or jar!). Remove top parchment.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes-- and then for the last few minutes check every minute until golden. Remove from oven and rip away parchment after 5-10 minutes. Break into pieces and enjoy!!
Finally, in times like this, we tend to wildly swing from a state of overwhelm to shutting down, as we try to make sense of something incomprehensible. While the larger consumer culture encourages us to carry on, business as usual, and sometimes that can feel so necessary when the grief and suffering is so immense, it seems to me that that allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable is good medicine. I'm again so grateful for the work I've done with Joanna Macy, who outlines these principles in the Work that Reconnects:
- This world, in which we are born and take our being, is alive.
It is not our supply house and sewer; it is our larger body. The intelligence that evolved us from star dust and interconnects us with all beings is sufficient for the healing of our Earth community, if we but align with that purpose.
- Our true nature is far more ancient and encompassing than the separate self defined by habit and society.
We are as intrinsic to our living world as the rivers and trees, woven of the same intricate flows of matter/energy and mind. Having evolved us into self-reflexive consciousness, the world can now know itself through us, behold its own majesty, tell its own stories--and also respond to its own suffering.
- Our experience of pain for the world springs from our inter-connectedness with all beings, from which also arises our powers to act on their behalf.
When we deny or repress our pain for the world, or treat it as a private pathology, our power to take part in the healing of our world is diminished. This apatheia need not become a terminal condition. Our capacity to respond to our own and others' suffering--that is, the feedback loops that weave us into life--can be unblocked.
- Unblocking occurs when our pain for the world is not only intellectually validated, but experienced.
Cognitive information about the crises we face, or even about our psychological responses to them, is insufficient. We can only free ourselves from our fears of the pain--including the fear of getting permanently mired in despair or shattered by grief--when we allow ourselves to experience these feelings. Only then can we discover their fluid, dynamic character. Only then can they reveal on a visceral level our mutual belonging to the web of life.
- When we reconnect with life, by willingly enduring our pain for it, the mind retrieves its natural clarity.
Not only do we experience our interconnectedness in the community of Earth, but also mental eagerness arises to match this experience with new paradigm thinking. Concepts which bring relatedness into focus become vivid. Significant learnings occur, for the individual system is reorganizing and reorienting, grounding itself in wider reaches of identity and self-interest.
- The experience of reconnection with the Earth community arouses desire to act on its behalf.
As Earth's self-healing powers take hold within us, we feel called to participate in the Great Turning. For these self-healing powers to operate effectively, they must be trusted and acted on. The steps we take can be modest undertakings, but they should involve some risk to our mental comfort, lest we remain caught in old, "safe" limits. Courage is a great teacher and bringer of joy.
What are your favorite recipes for resiliency and courage?
Take care everyone.
Love,
Dori
SEAWEED:
East Coast:
http://www.shesellsseaweed.com/
www.Ironboundisland.com
West Coast:
Rainbow Grocery
http://www.seaweed.net/
http://www.loveseaweed.com/
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